Fighting It

How do you know when you hate your job or just something else about your life?

I ask because I'm at a bit of a crossroads but am somewhat stuck with concern to which direction I want to travel. I think it would be rather easy to decide if my job was the root of my discontent if I had a "bad" job. I mean, if I woke up every morning and had to lance boils or sanitize Port-O-Johns or clean geriatric genitals, then it might be an easier question to answer, but I have a "good" job. It's secure, serves the Greater Good, pays well (I just got a raise in fact), and looks good on a resume. But I feel like I'm furiously spinning my wheels. In fact, I feel like I have stomped the accelerator to the floor, am enveloped in the acrid smoke of burnt rubber, and am trying to ignore the fact that sparks are starting to fly from exposed rims.

There are those bench mark ages in people's lives by which they measure what they have accomplished against what they had envisioned they would accomplish. I'm coming up on thirty. I know it's a sign of my youth that I think of thirty as old, but damn. Thirty? Thirty years of life experience, education, relationships, chances to contribute, life-changing moments, and here I am at 2:30AM writing on a blog wondering what the hell I am going to do with my life.

I think the thing that irks me the most is that I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen. It would be nice if my own personal Yoda would knock on my door and, in some bizarre syntax, tell me, "Direction in this you should go." Or if the embodiment of all my romantic leanings would approach me on the street, smile, and say, "Hi, I'm perfect for you. Let's get hitched." It doesn't really work that way, does it? And logically, I know you have to make your own way but sometimes I feel like my job gets in the way of those clear, determined moments when you stand up against the inertia of whatever has come before and slice into what you want to come after.

Right now I feel like a passenger in a plane taking off under bad weather. It's cold and gray and everything has the salty filth of winter on it. As cliche as it seems, finally being given the go ahead (or taking the go ahead), speeding down a runway, blowing the mist from my windows, and knifing through the clouds in my head sounds like pure, liberating joy.

But I don't even feel like I've packed my bags yet.